I know the two aren't really compatible, with paleo so meat-focused; but I try to eat a vegetarian paleo diet. Paleo is supposed to be among the healthiest diets there are, because it's based around the nutrition of our ancestors (how human beings evolved). It gets a little old eating nothing but veggies and eggs, especially when you try to buy eggs from less-cruel sources! So expensive

I have serious doubts about the Paleo diet. I think there is a lot of cod science behind it.

The emphasis on meat is one thing that is likely anachronistic - our ancestors would have likely only eaten meat infrequently - too difficult to catch and expends too many calories. Hunter gather societies today do much more gathering than hunting.

One thing that the Paleo diet chooses to ignore/explain away is the importance starch plays in the human diet. Humans produce much more of the enzyme amylase (which breaks down starch) than any of our primate cousins. The human ability to process starch from seeds, grains etc. was a great evolutionary leap and allowed us to come out of the forest and, much later, to farm and store food in the form of grain.

A veggie form of the Paleo is probably more authentic but I'd be wary of your ability to get enough essential vitamins and even calories. For my money a wholefoods vegan diet with a good variety of fruit and veg, whole grains and legumes is about as healthy as you can get.

Any pictures I've seen of the founder of the Paleo diet Loren Cordain - he doesn't look too healthy. As in this video where he tries to waffle about why grains are bad

Knotty Veneer wrote:I have serious doubts about the Paleo diet. I think there is a lot of cod science behind it.

The emphasis on meat is one thing that is likely anachronistic - our ancestors would have likely only eaten meat infrequently - too difficult to catch and expends too many calories. Hunter gather societies today do much more gathering than hunting.

One thing that the Paleo diet chooses to ignore/explain away is the importance starch plays in the human diet. Humans produce much more of the enzyme amylase (which breaks down starch) than any of our primate cousins. The human ability to process starch from seeds, grains etc. was a great evolutionary leap and allowed us to come out of the forest and, much later, to farm and store food in the form of grain.

A veggie form of the Paleo is probably more authentic but I'd be wary of your ability to get enough essential vitamins and even calories. For my money a wholefoods vegan diet with a good variety of fruit and veg, whole grains and legumes is about as healthy as you can get.

Any pictures I've seen of the founder of the Paleo diet Loren Cordain - he doesn't look too healthy. As in this video where he tries to waffle about why grains are bad

I wish I knew enough about nutrition to feel comfortable agreeing or disagreeing with either you or the paleo pushers, but there is so much dissent that seems to be backed up by solid science :/

There's this one book I read, The Primal Blueprint, that really got me into the diet. A friend recommended it to me and he likes to rant about corn and other grains a lot. I don't know what is a perfectly healthy diet, even after taking a nutrition course, but I do know that I've been losing some of the extra fat I have since I stopped eating lots of grains. That's good enough for me.

My calories mostly come from eggs and oils. I make a lot of foods with coconut oil, and add a fair amount of olive oil to my salads. I do miss soy milk lol

Yup, I was a vegetarian or vegan for most of my life and I became a paleo eater mostly for the last several years. I am much healthier now than I've ever been. Cholesterol went way down, various health problems went away and I feel better and look better.

"Use what seems like poison as medicine. We can use our personal suffering as the path to compassion for all beings." Pema Chodron

Also, the "grandfather" of the paleo diet has been at it longer than anyone else in the public eye and his numbers are all very good. I made this point in an earlier thread which you can probably find if you search "paleo"

"Use what seems like poison as medicine. We can use our personal suffering as the path to compassion for all beings." Pema Chodron

Oh wow, I had no idea this sort of thing had already been discussed so extensively! Thank you for the link, I will read the posts there that stick out for me

I don't mean this in a judgmental way, but do you personally ever feel badly for eating meat? Especially after going most of your life without it, I'm sure that must have been a somewhat difficult decision to make.

At this point, I've been eating it long enough that I've become pretty calloused to it, but like I said somewhere in that thread, I always eat it with awareness of the situation and try to connect it to the dharma with intention. The animal is already dead and meat-eating is on the rise, so by not eating meat I am not actually accomplishing anything. I wouldn't kill animals to eat meat, though. If it came to that, then I would just go back to having my health problems and probably die a few decades earlier, get older looking sooner, have arthritis sooner, etc. We are in samsara so things are not how we wish they would be, even though we wish no animals would suffer.

"Use what seems like poison as medicine. We can use our personal suffering as the path to compassion for all beings." Pema Chodron

I was a vegan or vegetarian for a few years, meticulously tracking and being very careful to get all nutrients. It wrecked me. I developed numerous health issues and cognitive dysfunction. Now I eat lots of eggs, butter, only grass fed beef and organ meat a 3-5 times a week, and fish 4-6 times a week, nothing ever factory farmed. My issue was with the scourge of industrialized factory farming. It's still a plant based diet. I eat vast amounts of veggies with each meal as a base and build on that. I had blood panels done on each diet and my health is better, now, than it has ever been, in body and mind. I don't like to put names on diets anymore, because it seems to only cause problems. Some tend to use their diet as ideology. I do not wish to get sucked into the debate, because I see it as a waste of time, and, frankly, nutrition is mostly all relative anyways. But I thought I'd share my experience because it has been so profound for me.

On eating meat, I realize that there is no way, practically, to eat without causing death at some point. I try to take time before every meal to appreciate the massive amount of energy expended to get this food in front of me to eat. Environmentally, supporting grass fed animals, beef in particular, is actually beneficial to the soil. Soil depletion causes massive problems for humanity in many ways. There are books which talk about the rising and falling of civilizations of the past have correlated with the richness and depletion of the soil nutrient density. Grazing animals help to restore the soil, which has many benefits. Directing money towards supporting grass fed meat/local farms means less money for corporations, which has many benefits (less toxins in the environment and food, less pollution, climate change, animal cruelty, etc). When demand goes up for healthier food, corporations will have to change to selling healthier foods, and human health will increase (that's my loose theory, anyways). I could go on and on. And, well honestly, the health benefits makes me a more effective, active human being so that I may hopefully help more people (or try, however pitiful I may be...).

I've refined my diet over the years to fit specifically and treat what health conditions I have. It is always being tweaked. I suppose it is closest to a paleo diet, but I more accurately call it an anti-inflammatory, low toxin, non-GMO, whole foods, as organic as possible, plant based diet with pastured, grass fed animals or wild caught fish. This is what has worked best for me, until it doesn't (if it comes to that).

"Seek truth in meditation, not moldy books. Look in the sky to find the moon, not in the pond." - Persian proverb